went to Salem, the state capital, in 1895 to lobby for bills that might favor his business interests. In 1896 Hume, switching to the Republican Party, used his newspaper, the Wedderburn Gazette, to support Republican William McKinley for the U.S. presidency. In 1900 Hume, running as a Republican, narrowly won election to represent Coos and Curry counties in the state legislature. Shortly after taking office, Hume helped scuttle a bill to repeal a law passed in 1899 that gave the owner of tidelands the exclusive right to fish the waters in front of them. Since Hume owned all the tidelands on the Rogue, the law gave him a monopoly on fishing its lower reaches. On issues unrelated to his business interests, Hume generally voted conservative. He won re-election in 1902, garnering 934 votes—less than half of the total cast—to the Democrat's 807, the Socialist's 219, and the Prohibition Party's 142. During his second term, Hume fought to keep the tidelands law intact and continued to support laissez-faire government and low taxes. Hume attempted but failed to win nomination for a seat in the state Senate in 1904, a seat in the state House of Representatives in 1906, and a seat in the state Senate in 1908. Dodds sums up Hume's political career by saying: His accomplishments as a legislator were slight; only one of his bills ever passed. On the other hand, he spoke and voted against many measures that were defeated and his credo of legislative decision was, first, his own interests and, second, support of a conservative position. In the midst of the Progressive era he remained a "stalwart among the stalwarts", although during the Populist regime he had expediently yielded for a time to free silver. Hatcheries Although Hume had shown no early interest in salmon conservation on the Columbia and elsewhere, on the Rogue he tried to protect the fish supply. Disappointed with his company's catch in 1877, he built a hatchery in Ellensburg, and in all but 7 of his 32 years on the river he operated hatcheries along the Rogue. Through his newspapers, lawsuits, lobbying, and speeches made while a member of the Oregon Legislature, Hume tried to influence public opinion about artificial fish propagation. In 1893, he published a series of articles, later reprinted as Salmon of the Pacific Coast, that summarized his ideas about ichthyology. In 1897, Hume persuaded the United States